[Game] Rocket Racer Review

Another Casual Racer has made its way to the Play Store with support for Android TV. Rocket Racer from CatfishBlues Games is a pretty straight forward game. You load it up, sign in with your Google account, then click choose a character and track and start racing. Each Level has up to 3 stars you can earn based on where you place in the race.

Coin Guide

Weapons Guide

Power-up Guide

What makes this special?

What is the selling point and why would I want to download this? Well let me tell you why in one word. Fast. Speed is the selling point of this mix of an endless runner and racer. When you mix Rockets with power ups and throw obstacles and 6 other opponents it becomes a blur and puts you on the edge of your seat trying not to lose.

Gamepad Support

It’s the first non Nvidia exclusive title that I’ve seen use that controller as a guide for the control layout and I like to see that others are adopting it, but if it could have a way to detect if you were using another one and show you that instead it would be helpful to those without SHIELDs.

What I Don’t Like

Now it’s a great pickup and play game but there’s a few minor things that could make the user experience better.

Cleaner Dpad Navigation – I said this because it was difficult to navigate smoothly in the level selector and the character select required too much navigation for something that simple.

No Full Screen Advertisements – Now I completely understand developers have to earn money like the rest of us & that’s fine with me even with ads on TV. But when you overlay a full screen interactive ad that i only figured out how to get out of by hitting back on my controller then it’s a bit too far. I suggest leaving the bar in there but removing the full screen at least for Android TV because it ruins the experience you’re giving the user.

Closing

In conclusion it’s a great niche game added to the Android TV platform and shows the interest developers have for the platform and where it may lead to next we don’t know but we’ll be the first ones along for the ride.